Comparison of the Diagnostic Accuracy and Validity of a Short Version of Teen Screen Questionnaire-Mental Health (TSQ -M-Short) for Use in Community

BACKGROUND: A few self-administered questionnaires are available for assessing mental health among adolescents in primary-care settings. Brief measures are desirable for use in big-data, epidemiological studies. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate a 7-item version, of the Teen Screen Questionnaire-Mental Health (TSQ-M), the TSQ-M-Short. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this prospective cross-sectional study of 140 adolescents, recruited from 6 rural or urban schools, the newly developed TSQ-M-Short as the measure for validation and General Health Questionnaire-12 item (GHQ-12) as the gold standard measure were administered by independent trained raters. Tests for diagnostic accuracy and validity were conducted. RESULTS: A total TSQ-M-Short score of ≥ 6 had a sensitivity of 76%, specificity of 74%, positive likelihood ratio of 2.99, negative likelihood ratio of 0.33, positive predictive value of 6% and a negative predictive value of 82.1%. The area under curve (AUC) in the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) for the TSQ-M-Short version was 0.84 (95% cumulative incidence (CI) = 0.76-0.89). The AUC for the TSQ-M-Short version was higher than the AUC for the original version, and the difference between the areas was 0.10 (95% CI = 0.02-0.19), which was statistically significant (z = 2.49; P = 0.01). The internal consistency of TSQ-M-Short, as measured by chronbach's α, was 0.34 (95% CI = 0.15-0.48). The construct validity demonstrated a 3-factor structure, which explained 55% of the variance. CONCLUSION: The TSQ-M-Short has an overall diagnostic accuracy which is better than the original TSQ-M. Although the original version includes symptoms for more mental health disorders, providing a wider screen. This short version will prove useful in big-data studies.